Depression -- or
Love
and a Heroin Fix
by Peter
Ralston
 We
see depression being accompanied by various sub-qualities such
as anger, hurt, helplessness, fear, grief, or sadness, but the
root of the depression is the same. We see sub-qualities
arising as our way of relating to depression or the apparent
subject of depression.
It appears
that depression occurs when we are drawn to our core fear that
we are not capable of life and its complications. This arises
from the sense of being a limited mind-self. I suspect that
all depression is a function of how our identity, or feeling
of being a separate emotional-mind, relates to life when we
feel powerless to affect it as we desire, thus evoking a sense
of being worthless.
Depression
appears to arise only out of the sense of our exclusive inner
qualities, that sense that we are privy to exclusive knowledge
of our internal workings -- which are us, and which are known
only by us. The sense of being separate and exclusive is the
source of the depression. It arises as the reaction our
identity has when felt as not powerful in its effects on the
world. The "world" is seen as others or things, or a
combination of situations and events.
Some
conditions may indicate that this mind-self is not capable,
not powerful in relationship to them, yet still may not
produce depression. What does elicit depression are those
events in which we feel incapable that have some meaning or
significance to us. They "identify" us as not
worthwhile. Of course this is a subjective interpretation,
determined by what we think we must "be" to be
worthy.
The very sense
of exclusive-mind lends itself to be filled with assumptions
that go largely unchallenged because of the isolated quality
that arises from the demand of exclusivity. Our main
assumption is that our assumptions (thoughts and feelings
about how it is) are correct.
We see that
depression lifts when we are sufficiently distracted from our
mind-form assumptions, or the subject of depression, or when
we are allowed, through the condition of things, to feel
powerful. Other than this we wait until we forget.
Let's look at
a possible explanation for one of the fiercest and most common
subjects of depression, the loss of a passionate love affair.
First, let us examine our assumptions about passionate love.
I would like
to use a harsh but rather accurate analogy of our relationship
to passionate love. We think it is good; not only good, but
one of the greatest things in the world. Also, we assume its
fulfillment has to do with a particular object, another human.
We determine its "goodness" as a result of the fact
that it makes us feel good. It produces very pleasurable
sensations in our body-mind. Then again, so does heroin.
Passionate
love and a heroin fix have a lot in common. The so-called
pleasures associated with their attainment are the result of a
shift in sensations that allows the body-mind to feel okay
with itself once being affected by the object of this fix.
These
sensations are associated with various forms of feelings and
perceptions. In the love affair, the pleasurable sensations
often become associated with such things as a house, a song, a
touch, a habit, a feeling, a sound, a shared communication, a
concept of the way the world is. The concept of
"reality" that is stimulated by or creates the heady
aroma of love is one in which you are seen as worthy of
"being" -- it holds a purpose for your existence. Of
course, what it takes for you to feel worthy of being can be
very complex and abstruse depending on the various ideas and
"meanings" events and things have in relationship
to you. Regardless of how you get there, the bottom line is
that you obtain these good sensations once you
get your "hit" on this thing, be it another person
or heroin.
These
sensations are eventually viewed as simply the "neutral
state" and are noticed primarily at their loss or
absence. So then life becomes a negative with the goal of
obtaining or maintaining the thing that brings it out of the
negative to simply a neutral, with the temporary added
attraction of a rush of sensation that accompanies entrance
into that state. Another quality that is true of both is a
growing sense that one's survival or safety is threatened by
their loss. This is an extremely strong motivating factor for
the maintenance of the relationship, generating negativity and
fear as a background to the relationship.
If we honestly
examine the desire for the experience of passionate love, we
must admit its motivation lies heavily in body-mind sensations
that we obtain when in relation to the object of our passion
and love. We might say with great airs that it is the
"love" of that person, which is of course inviolate
in our assumption and training. We say we are willing to die
or kill for that "love" and it is good, right, and
noble. Horseshit. We are willing to die for a heroin fix and
are not so pretentious about it!
If we are ruthlessly honest,
we notice that it is not really the "person" we seek
-- it is the sensation that that person elicits when we are in
their company, either as a presence, or a concept, a memory.
This experience is what we are after. If it were generated by
someone else, we would quickly shift to that other. It does
not really matter who or what the object is. It must simply
fulfill the requirement of that experience. So we call this
passionate love and we call it good.
Rarity in our
experience of objects that produce those sensations --
or that we allow to produce those sensations, or use as an
excuse to produce them -- is the greatest supporter of the
illusion that they actually pertain to the person of our
experience.
Imagine if
everyone and everything produced these sensations. Then our
constant state would always be that, and we would not identify
love of another as the cause. As long as we cannot produce
that experience in ourselves without an object appearing as
the cause, as long as we feel the need for the object to
attain these deep sensations, then we cannot truly love the
"being" of the object. Each "loved-one"
becomes for us a "bag of heroin", and that need will
always cloud the free relational communication between beings.
Love, arising
from "being", will only be true when there is no
con-fusion, or fusion with, any sort of need or dependency at
all. So it is with passion. We must simply notice what things
are. Passionate involvement with all manner of things on the
level of enthusiasm, lovingness, lustiness, excitement,
fullness in expression and feeling, seems to be a very
functional part of being alive. However, we cannot do justice
to this passion or to love if we do not distinguish what is
what -- and so clarify the matter.
Allowing
things to simply be things, without attaching all sorts of
complications and meanings to them about our personal worth or
capability, renders us free of them. We avoid depression since
the sensations that come and go mean little about our
perfection. We need not be swept away by the absence (or
presence) of these sensations. Since sensations are noticed in
contrast to their absence, we must understand and allow for
them to be and not be. In the same moment, this is always
true, whether a sensation is felt as arising or not arising.
When love is true, then the form changing will not alter this
at all. It is not felt only in connection with or as the
presence or appearance of an object that manifests the being
of such felt love. Since this love is crested in experience,
rather than produced at effect in cognition, it neither comes
nor goes with any form.
This
article was excerpted from the book:
 Reflections
of Being
by Peter Ralston.
Reprinted
with permission of the publisher, North Atlantic Books,
Berkeley, CA, USA. ©1991. http://northatlanticbooks.com.
Info/Order this book.(out of print)
A more recent title by this author:
Zen Body-Being: An Enlightened Approach to Physical Skill, Grace, and Power
by Peter Ralston and Laura Ralston
Other books by this author.
About The
Author
Peter
Ralston is a leading practitioner of martial arts, investigating and
teaching aplications of psycholgical and spiritual growth. He directs
training programs and workshops at Cheng Hsin, The Center for Ontological
Research and Internal Martial Arts in Oakland California. The author also conducts staff training workshops for Lifespring, the Institute of
Self Actualization, Robbins Research Institute (NLP) and other human
potential organizations. Visit his website at www.chenghsin.com.
Another article by this author.
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